Governor Christie “misspoke” when he said in December that his campaign chief had assured him that he didn’t have “any knowledge” about the George Washington Bridge lane closures, an attorney for the former campaign manager said Wednesday.

Former campaign manager Bill Stepien

Bill Stepien contends that he told the governor on Dec. 12, a day before Christie made his public comments, that he had been approached by Port Authority executive David Wildstein with the idea of closing the lanes, Stepien’s attorney wrote in a letter released Wednesday.

At the time of Christie’s comments, the controversy was largely confined to the Port Authority and no indications had surfaced that anyone at the bi-state agency had broached the idea with a member of Christie’s inner circle prior to the closure of the lanes for five days in September.

The revelation that a Port Authority executive had approached Christie’s campaign manager with the idea before it was carried out would likely have inflamed the controversy and raised further questions about who authorized the closures, part of a purported traffic study.

“There is no dispute that at that December 12, 2013, meeting, Mr. Stepien informed the governor that the proposed ‘lane realignment’ was one of Mr. Wildstein’s ‘50 crazy ideas,’Ÿ” the attorney, Kevin H. Marino, wrote in a letter that demanded changes to a |report commissioned by Christie that found that Stepien had |misled the governor.

On Dec. 13, though, Christie told reporters that he had “made it very clear to everybody on my senior staff that if anyone had any knowledge about this that they needed to come forward to me and tell me about it and they’ve all assured me that they don’t.”

Asked specifically about Stepien, the governor said at the time that he had spoken to Stepien, who assured him of “the same thing.”

The new details add to a complex and evolving timeline of how the governor and his office dealt with the unfolding scandal and could be a significant wrinkle as the administration faces persistent questions about whether it tried to tamp down the controversy.

But even if the governor was told on Dec. 12 that a Port Authority executive approached his campaign manager, the significance of that conversation hangs on several unresolved questions: Did Wildstein pitch the idea to Stepien as a legitimate traffic study or a way to get back at Fort Lee’s mayor or something in between? Why would Wildstein, an executive at an independent transportation agency, approach the governor’s campaign manager with the idea if it were a legitimate traffic study?

And did Stepien tell the governor on Dec. 12 that Wildstein had come to him with a legitimate traffic idea or something that was politically motivated?

Although Stepien’s attorney said the governor misspoke, he stopped short of saying it was intentional.

Marino did take aim, though, at what the governor’s office has put forth as the most definitive account of the lane closures, a report commissioned by Christie that found that Wildstein and Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, had unknown ulterior motives for the lane closures. In a letter to the lead author of the report, Marino disputed the report’s finding that Stepien misled the governor about his knowledge and also took issue with the report’s statement that negative conclusions should be drawn from Stepien’s refusal to cooperate with the internal review.

“The time has come to set the record straight about Bill Stepien,” Marino said in a statement accompanying the letter he sent to lawyers at Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher on April 2. “He is innocent of any wrongdoing with respect to the Bridgegate affair.”

Marino released the letter, he said, because the attorneys had not agreed to his private demands for a correction of the report.

The lead author of the report on Wednesday responded, issuing his own statement defending it.

“Shortly after receiving Bill Stepien’s lawyer’s request to ‘correct’ our report, we respectfully declined because, based on the evidence, there is no basis for |any correction,” attorney Randy M. Mastro wrote. “We nevertheless offered |Bill Stepien and his lawyer the opportunity to provide us with any evidence |they wanted us to consider, but we |have received nothing from them. And self-serving statements by lawyers are |not evidence. Hence, our report stands as is.”

A spokesman for Christie referred to the Mastro statement when asked for comment about whether the governor had misspoken.

The report found no evidence that Stepien was involved in the decision to close the lanes, but it stated that Stepien gave the governor “false” assurances about his knowledge.

Stepien’s attorney said Wednesday that Stepien did have prior knowledge of the idea to close the lanes and told the governor so on Dec. 12. He drew a distinction between having prior knowledge of the idea, though, and authorizing it or involvement in carrying it out.

Marino’s letter called the allegation that Stepien lied to Christie “reprehensible” and “actionable,” adding: “We demand that you retract it now.”

Stepien and Kelly refused to cooperate with the internal review ordered by Christie. They also have refused to comply with subpoenas from a legislative panel investigating the lane closures, citing their Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination. A state judge agreed that they did not have to comply with the subpoenas.

A federal grand jury investigation into the lane closures is under way.

The report by Mastro found that Wildstein and Kelly had an “ulterior motive” for closing the lanes, but it could not determine what that motive was. It also said that, when approached by Wildstein on an unspecified date, Stepien dismissed the traffic study idea as one of Wildstein’s “50 crazy ideas.”

About a year before the lane closures, Stepien told another Christie confidant that Wildstein was a font of “small ball” ideas, according to an email obtained by The Record.

“I’m cleaning out my old emails this AM,” Stepien wrote to Christie political strategist Michael DuHaime on Sept, 8, 2012, when Stepien worked in the governor’s office of intergovernmental affairs, “and there are an obscene amount of ‘small ball’ Wildstein ideas. This one may [sum] it up best — I get about 10 of these each week.”

Attached was an email from Wildstein to Stepien in March of that year, alerting him to a space shuttle landing at John F. Kennedy Airport.

“We have the ability to bring guests on to the tarmac to watch [it] land and would like to see your office develop that list,” Wildstein wrote to Stepien.

Marino declined to comment on the email.

The report by Mastro and a team of other attorneys have said that the governor had been “assured” that his senior staff and Stepien had no involvement in the lane closures before he told the media that none of them had any prior knowledge of the closures.

“The governor and his senior staff accepted Kelly’s and Stepien’s assurances, which were later revealed to be false,” the report stated.

Marino pointed to a statement in the report, based on interviews with other ­administration officials, saying that ­Wildstein “first approached Stepien about this idea to realign the Fort Lee toll lanes” and that “Stepien, who was no longer a state employee at the time, sidestepped the question, telling Wildstein he would have to go to ‘Trenton.’Ÿ”

Marino also wrote that the Gibson Dunn attorneys misapplied a legal concept that a “negative inference” can be drawn from someone’s unwillingness to cooperate with an investigation in certain instances.

Although that argument is made in technical legal terms, Marino’s broader point is that the attorneys who wrote the report added conjecture to fill the holes in the investigation.

“Regrettably, in every instance in which the investigators who prepared the report were confronted with a gap in the evidence, they filled that void with surmise — surmise, which in Mr. Stepien’s case, seems designed for the sole and improper purpose of justifying what has since been revealed to be the clear mistreatment he received.”

For example, Marino wrote, Port Authority Chairman David Samson also declined to cooperate with the internal review, but the report draws no conclusions from that.

Christie cut ties with Stepien, his two-time campaign manager and a consultant for the Republican Governors Association, because he said he had lost faith in Stepien’s judgment after his emails were released.

Wildstein sent Kelly and Stepien emails about the fallout from the lane ­closures, as the media began asking ­questions, and in one Stepien refers to |the Fort Lee mayor as an “idiot.” He |also wrote to Wildstein, as the controversy grew: “W[in] some, lose some.”

Governor Christie “misspoke” when he said in December that his campaign chief had assured him that he didn’t have “any knowledge” about the George Washington Bridge lane closures, an attorney for the former campaign manager said Wednesday.

Bill Stepien contends that he told the governor on Dec. 12, a day before Christie made his public comments, that he had been approached by Port Authority executive David Wildstein with the idea of closing the lanes, Stepien’s attorney wrote in a letter released Wednesday.

At the time of Christie’s comments, the controversy was largely confined to the Port Authority and no indications had surfaced that anyone at the bi-state agency had broached the idea with a member of Christie’s inner circle prior to the closure of the lanes for five days in September.

The revelation that a Port Authority executive had approached Christie’s campaign manager with the idea before it was carried out would likely have inflamed the controversy and raised further questions about who authorized the closures, part of a purported traffic study.

“There is no dispute that at that December 12, 2013, meeting, Mr. Stepien informed the governor that the proposed ‘lane realignment’ was one of Mr. Wildstein’s ‘50 crazy ideas,’Ÿ” the attorney, Kevin H. Marino, wrote in a letter that demanded changes to a |report commissioned by Christie that found that Stepien had |misled the governor.

On Dec. 13, though, Christie told reporters that he had “made it very clear to everybody on my senior staff that if anyone had any knowledge about this that they needed to come forward to me and tell me about it and they’ve all assured me that they don’t.”

Asked specifically about Stepien, the governor said at the time that he had spoken to Stepien, who assured him of “the same thing.”

The new details add to a complex and evolving timeline of how the governor and his office dealt with the unfolding scandal and could be a significant wrinkle as the administration faces persistent questions about whether it tried to tamp down the controversy.

But even if the governor was told on Dec. 12 that a Port Authority executive approached his campaign manager, the significance of that conversation hangs on several unresolved questions: Did Wildstein pitch the idea to Stepien as a legitimate traffic study or a way to get back at Fort Lee’s mayor or something in between? Why would Wildstein, an executive at an independent transportation agency, approach the governor’s campaign manager with the idea if it were a legitimate traffic study?

The explosive e-mails and text messages, obtained and first reported by The Record, sparked a political firestorm that extended far beyond New Jersey and Fort Lee. For full coverage, click here.

And did Stepien tell the governor on Dec. 12 that Wildstein had come to him with a legitimate traffic idea or something that was politically motivated?

Although Stepien’s attorney said the governor misspoke, he stopped short of saying it was intentional.

Marino did take aim, though, at what the governor’s office has put forth as the most definitive account of the lane closures, a report commissioned by Christie that found that Wildstein and Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, had unknown ulterior motives for the lane closures. In a letter to the lead author of the report, Marino disputed the report’s finding that Stepien misled the governor about his knowledge and also took issue with the report’s statement that negative conclusions should be drawn from Stepien’s refusal to cooperate with the internal review.

“The time has come to set the record straight about Bill Stepien,” Marino said in a statement accompanying the letter he sent to lawyers at Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher on April 2. “He is innocent of any wrongdoing with respect to the Bridgegate affair.”

Marino released the letter, he said, because the attorneys had not agreed to his private demands for a correction of the report.

The lead author of the report on Wednesday responded, issuing his own statement defending it.

“Shortly after receiving Bill Stepien’s lawyer’s request to ‘correct’ our report, we respectfully declined because, based on the evidence, there is no basis for |any correction,” attorney Randy M. Mastro wrote. “We nevertheless offered |Bill Stepien and his lawyer the opportunity to provide us with any evidence |they wanted us to consider, but we |have received nothing from them. And self-serving statements by lawyers are |not evidence. Hence, our report stands as is.”

A spokesman for Christie referred to the Mastro statement when asked for comment about whether the governor had misspoken.

The report found no evidence that Stepien was involved in the decision to close the lanes, but it stated that Stepien gave the governor “false” assurances about his knowledge.

Stepien’s attorney said Wednesday that Stepien did have prior knowledge of the idea to close the lanes and told the governor so on Dec. 12. He drew a distinction between having prior knowledge of the idea, though, and authorizing it or involvement in carrying it out.

Marino’s letter called the allegation that Stepien lied to Christie “reprehensible” and “actionable,” adding: “We demand that you retract it now.”

Stepien and Kelly refused to cooperate with the internal review ordered by Christie. They also have refused to comply with subpoenas from a legislative panel investigating the lane closures, citing their Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination. A state judge agreed that they did not have to comply with the subpoenas.

A federal grand jury investigation into the lane closures is under way.

The report by Mastro found that Wildstein and Kelly had an “ulterior motive” for closing the lanes, but it could not determine what that motive was. It also said that, when approached by Wildstein on an unspecified date, Stepien dismissed the traffic study idea as one of Wildstein’s “50 crazy ideas.”

About a year before the lane closures, Stepien told another Christie confidant that Wildstein was a font of “small ball” ideas, according to an email obtained by The Record.

“I’m cleaning out my old emails this AM,” Stepien wrote to Christie political strategist Michael DuHaime on Sept, 8, 2012, when Stepien worked in the governor’s office of intergovernmental affairs, “and there are an obscene amount of ‘small ball’ Wildstein ideas. This one may [sum] it up best — I get about 10 of these each week.”

Attached was an email from Wildstein to Stepien in March of that year, alerting him to a space shuttle landing at John F. Kennedy Airport.